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Some of my old articles on this site were first written around 12 years ago. In mid 2006 I reviewed all of them, but only had to tweak a few things because so little has changed. Likewise this year, 2009, the scam web sites proliferate, all claiming to sell the most wonderful genuine essential oils, yet many of the oils they sell are reconstructed or adulterated in one way or another. I have also noticed a big increase in web sites based in countries where regulation is none existent who claim the most outrageous therapeutic uses for essential oils. See my other article on that. Below are some added comments on various aspects of the trade and how little things have changed. USA & Canada. The Far East. UK legislation. Essential oils. Aromatherapy web sites: Please beware of what you read on these. The Internet is great in many ways, but it is an open book for the scammers and cheats. You MUST always remember that there is hardly any regulation of what people say on web sites around the world. Therefore, suppliers and therapists can say anything they like to ensnare gullible people without fear of prosecution. Never believe therapeutic claims made for essential oils or hydrosols unless the supplier can prove them with solid referenced data. References to the popular books are usually worthless references. In the UK it is not permitted to make medicinal claims for essential oils if you also sell them. Unfortunately,in recent years, there has been an increase in people publishing outrageous and dangerous advice on their web sites. They get away with this because they only operate as therapists and do not openly sell the oils. They also cover their backs by saying they get the information from various aromatherapy books. Also in the UK, in 2005-6, there has been an increase in web sites making illegal medicinal claims. If you see this it is a good sign of an outfit that are deliberately ignoring the laws which older businesses have complied with for years. It is also an indication of a supplier who know nothing on the laws relating to what they sell, so do you want to deal with such outfits? In the USA and Canada the claims made on web sites are preposterous and are made simply to sell you oils. Most of their medicinal claims are taken straight from books on herbal medicine and are irrelevant to the eternal uses of the essential oils. In the USA there are laws relating to consumer safety under which essential oils fall,and on medicinal claims. However, the enforcement authorities have been lax in the extreme in enforcing the regulations. This has led to a culture of "we can say what we like, no one will prosecute us". Thus the consumer is sold all kinds of quack medicines by con artists throughout the natural health field. Aromatherapy training: The poor training endemic in this cottage industry continues unchanged. 99% of aromatherapy education worldwide continues to be based around the error ridden popular books on the subject. See the two articles on AT training for more details on why these books are so poor. I am truly saddened to find that most courses taught in UK Government funded centres still do not provide students with accurate referenced safety information. Students from these courses have told me that their teachers still use the popular trade books/novels as source materials. They still teach the unreferenced nonsense in most of those books on contraindications of certain oils. I hasten to add that most of these teachers are 'approved' by the trade's leading organisations - need I say more! The only organisation in the world who tackled this problem of teaching consistent and verifiable information years ago was IATA in Canada. University courses: Many of these course are of suspect quality. The scientific aspects such as microbiology, horticulture, A/P etc. are often fine. However, what lets most of them down badly is their reliance on the writings and teachings of the popular aromatherapy figures for their information about therapeutics. They also rely heavily on incorrect extrapolations of therapeutic activity based on single chemicals as is mentioned in several of my articles. The origin or accuracy of these concepts (which I know comes from the inventions of certain French therapists) never gets evaluated. Some of these courses use lecturers on essential oil chemistry who have no experience or training within the essential oils or analysis trade. There is no assessment mechanism common to all University Complementary medicine courses. The administrators assume if a teacher or course is approved by a trade organisation then it should be OK! Therefore, never assume that because courses are validated by a University that they must be accurate. That is NOT the way modern Universities operate. Their main activity now is putting backsides on seats and to hell with educational quality. Aromatherapy as a profession: Well, in the UK, forget it! All professionalism has been killed stone dead by the continual churning out of badly trained therapists to take the place of the huge drop out rate. This trade functions by continually training people who have little hope of gaining regular full time work. These people realise within a year or so that there is not enough work to go around and they drop out. The sausage machine continues its work unabated. The unfortunate part of this is that newcomers continue to get sucked into the webs of the numerous trade liars and cheats. I know that even some top name aromatherapy authors cannot make a full time living in aromatherapy. UK Aromatherapy organisations: Representatives of the UK trade organisations continue to lie to various Government departments about how many people they represent and who they represent. Leaders of UK trade organisations continue to mislead overseas people by giving the impression they are THE leading organisation. The IFA has failed to make the fundamental changes needed following the abortive takeover bid. Numerous other UK organisations continue down their own paths most of which are still based around beauty therapy trade hype. ITEC still give overseas students the impression that they are a respected UK approved validation authority, when in reality they are simply a private company. The 'standards' all these organisations say they adhere to are a joke. The real standards of teaching accurate verified information on their therapy do not exist. The only change in recent years is that UK Government validation authorities are giving credibility to these organisations courses; mainly due to being beguiled by the great efforts of certain of the trade's representatives, not on the basis of sound information. The whole educational system in the UK has become embroiled in "procedures and protocols", "codes of conduct", and fixing numbers of hours of study, but NOT quality of information provided. All rubber stamped by a plethora of incompetent Government departments and quangos. Aromatherapy
legislation: Also see the new page on Statutory
regulation. UK organisations representing the trade in essential oils and herbs always opt for compromises instead of fighting attempts by the EEC to restrict our fundamental rights. These organisations never inform the public of what they are doing until everything is too late. Of course, if you fight the bureaucrats and tell them they are wrong, you do not get the cushy jobs, funding or Queens awards do you! In addition to the above, most legislation penned by the EEC is not enforced and rogue businesses will simply ignore it. A major problem with the European Commission is they rarely put in place any policing mechanisms for their inept laws. In the UK most enforcement of laws is the job of the police or local Trading Standards departments. In both cases these organisations do not have the resources to go chasing rogue traders in aromatherapy, or enforcing the associated legislation on labelling, cosmetic ingredients, etc. I know that Trading Standards departments around the country have had essential oils analysed and found them to be fake, yet hardly any enforcement action against this gross fraud has occurred. Neither have any larger oil suppliers been subject to criminal prosecutions for fraud. Advice
to members of trade organizations in the USA And Canada: 1. What are the individual members legal obligations in the current structure. 2. Have you ever been provided with a summary of the accounts? If not why not? 3. Is the organization fulfilling its legal obligations such as submitting tax returns, copies of accounts, etc. to the respective authorities? 4. If it has not done that what are the individual members legal obligations? 5. Have the membership or its officers been consulted on hiring and firing of staff? 6. Is the President given such powers to act alone in the constitution? 7. If a member of staff is dismissed illegally, what does this mean for individual members? Could for example the wronged person sue all the members as individuals. Could the organization go into bankruptcy if a wrongfully dismissed staff member sued the organizations? What are your obligations if the organization goes bankrupt? 8. Is the constitution being adhered to in respect of elections? If not what does that mean in legal terms? 9. Do you know if debtors to your organization are being actively pursued? 10. Do you know what expenses are permitted as claimable by the officers? Do you know if a ceiling on expenses is fixed or can they claim whatever they can get away with? Those and many more should tell you what your obligations as an individual member may entail. Apathy equals dictatorship, abuse of power and possible debt for members! In both countries the Aromatherapy organisations are far from being well founded. The NAHA and CFA validate some appalling courses and teachers. Canada is the worst I have come across in that respect. The Canadian and US Governments do nothing to enforce their existing laws on honest trading. Please therefore do not believe a fraction of what you will read on American or Canadian aromatherapy web sites, in particular beware of those sites giving outrageous medicinal claims for their products. Beware of Young Living and their distributors, almost all they say is a lie and they use disgraceful mind conditioning techniques to brainwash their cult followers. A few comments here for readers in the Far East: UK aromatherapy companies have made big efforts to get into your countries. So have the biggest confidence tricksters in the UK, US and French essential oil supply trade. You have a habit of believing that if someone has written a book, or is a teacher, that they must be very knowledgeable. That might have been the case in your countries in the past, but most publishers do not care about accuracy of books, only in profits. No major changes; the trade continues selling its adulterated oils as much as they ever did. The one big change is that many more traders are selling "organically grown" oils than before. These scams were being endorsed by the once respected UK Soil Association. Several aromatherapy suppliers have joined this organisation in order to fool their customers into thinking all their oils are "OG" and certified as such. The Soil Association were proposing giving certification of organic production based on paperwork furnished by UK oil traders, or discredited overseas OG certifying bodies. The Soil Association - like many other organisations in the field - seem to have been taken over by University educated clones who only want to deal with pieces of paper and "work with the trades". As to real monitoring of the scams of traders - forget it. Beware of essential oils originating in far flung countries where "organic certification" is being offered. Do not believe a fraction of what essential oil suppliers will tell you on this issue. Most aromatherapy traders do not have a clue on the true origin of their oils because they purchase most of their stock via middlemen who will lie through their teeth to make a sale. Conservation - See also Rosewood oil It is now clear that the essential oil traders have been lying for years about the origin of Rosewood oil. There has never been any ecologically sustainable production of this oil. The market is now flooded with semi-synthetic sandalwood oil due to the shortage of the real thing. The aromatherapy trade is only a small part of the huge criminal trade in real Sandalwood oil, but I thought aromatherapists were supposed to be caring people??? So take a look at what your supplier claims on the above issues. These conservation issues make me more sick of the hypocrisy in aromatherapy than anything else. Many of its leading figures try to give the impression they are lovely spiritual caring people. Yet what do they do - they condone the rape of the Worlds forests for their 'energetic' oils. Recently is was reported that Amazon jungle deforestation increased by 40% between 2001 and 2002 BBC world news report 1 The above is despite the Millions wasted by conservation organisations. Most of the larger organisations and the EEC have become a bottomless pit for your money. They employ pen pushers who waste vast amounts of your money on conferences, codes of conduct, meetings, etc. One thing they cannot to grips with is that the people in the countries where the wild plants are gathered often can't read their codes of conduct. The Governments in these same countries are run on corruption and vested trade interests. See a good article on this situation here: BBC world news report 2
Martin Watt. "Oh he is always so negative"- the common comment you will hear coming from the aromatherapy trades con artists, or those who have this mad idea that to criticize wrong doing is politically incorrect!! Back to top Source
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